I have been a big fan of #2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) for some time now. I always viewed it as a great way to safeguard your online accts. I even do that super in-depth 2FA thing that Google offers for my personal acct and every time I look into the subject, the preface always starts the same way:

1) use a password manager
2) use a password manager (seriously! Right Now!)
3) set up 2FA

But I always skipped the first two steps and never used a password manager and jumped straight into 2FA (which was dumb. For sure). So, now I got LastPass (a password manager) and I generated unique PW's for every single acct I use on the WWW that has any type of substance for me. The old PW's that I used to use are no longer. AND I have 2FA set up on every online acct that accepts it.

So this is a very good thing.

Why do I give so much of a flying fuck about online security?

Because I feel that (no, I KNOW) that online security has never been more threatened than it is in 2019. With an authoritarian state ruling the U.S. and government spies being overzealous of what gets said where and censoring becomes a bigger and bigger issue, and blah blah blah – I feel it is good to safeguard myself against online threats. At least it makes me feel better, and have peace of mind.

The economy has very little to do with the markets. People who study economics from freshman year of college all the way up through graduate school will see that the subject matter being taught should fall nowhere near what one would consider a true definition of the word economics, and what they are really being taught is Markets 101 and above.

For an economy to truly thrive and then prosper, one has to take into consideration the social class, and income levels, of the members of that economy. It is, after all, the People we want to see thriving in the economy, and not just the markets, and not conducting cut-throat, capitalistic, “it's just business” deals within it. Two fundamental things would have to happen.

1) provide a basic income to everyone below the poverty line that is on-par with a family making $50K per year. If the poverty line is set below $50K per year: raise the poverty level to reflect this number. In 2019 it is very hard to thrive in MOST cities with an income below $50K per year.

2) prevent inflation from occurring by making it a priority on the part of the Federal Reserve to see DEFLATION, and not setting deliberate goals to see inflation.

There is more to this as the Money Cycle demands the Federal Reserve keep inflation high so as to pay off (small) portions of national debt, in order to make the central bank richer, all the while increasing the cost of living, which then promotes more borrowing, which then increases the debt higher, and round and round it goes into the Ponzi Scheme that it is.

But I am not going into detail on that cycle right now. What is more to the point, is what can be done both short and long term in regards to bringing about economic growth despite a broken system of centralized fiat currency issuance.

By starting with basic income, you provide one thing that is greater than any other in terms of the financial prioritization and opportunity within the lives of the citizenry – and that is a financial safety net for the individual and his/her family. Nothing promotes more genuine economic growth than safety and peace of mind of the individual who, when presented with an opportunity, decides to either pursue that opportunity, take risk, and invest in ideas or not pursue an opportunity, and not take risks, and not invest in ideas, due to financial tight-roping. A basic income requirement in the United States of America would provide a psychological position of heightened business ambition and financial ambiguity.

The second part of the recipe (lowered inflation (or deflation)) would make it so a basic income can be SET, and a minimum wage could be DECIDED ON, and both of which would be guarded against a rise in prices that would result in (what many believe is inevitable in the current system) hyperinflation, or in other words – paying $20 for a $1 candy bar as the local store, resulting in the citizenry losing faith in fiat currency, and creating a Great(er) Depression.

If there is not a basic income stipulation written into law within the next 10 years with an agreement by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve, wholesale, to make and keep deflation a priority – a Great(er) Depression is likely to occur. If We the People are to pass into law a basic income requirement for all of it's citizenry, we will see an organic economic growth like we have not seen in the United States to date.

I just had a little bit of a rant over on Twitter just now that began innocently enough with me “echo-chambering” on the Bell Laboratories video on YouTube about #UNIX and how the “breakthroughs” back then are almost antiquated now, but how it was all of their hard work that got us to where we are today.

But then the Tweets evolved into how we need to put laptops in the hands of high schoolers and tht the first device someone buys their kid should not be a phone or a laptop (though smartphones are necessary in 2019), but a laptop or a desktop, instead. This allows the young person to CREATE more and CONSUME less. And tat is very important.

And then the Tweets devolved into a discussion about how Apple sabotaged its MacBook lineup by ruining their keyboards and how they can make more money off their mobile lineup. And by doing this they not only A) make more money, but, B) safeguard themselves from people creating the next great computer business or computer science model, in general, and disrupting Apple's cash flow. Therefore using money (that can help many smaller industries grow) as a shield to protect the (already rich) billionaires from having their cash cow disrupted.

This is something I believe to be true and we have seen it with other industries as well. Such as Google buying the domain “duck.com” and having Chrome autocomplete that when people are trying to go to DuckDuckGo.com (duck.com forwards to google.com). And there are other industries that pretend to have competition (so as not to be broken up from monopolization) like YouTube, who more or less owns the online video market and pretends VIMEO and DailyMotion are “big” competitors and that they (YouTube) are just “battling it out in the free market” when everybody knows this is not the case.

This is a very good thing. I am more or less going to use it as a tethering device so I can get online with the Chromebook (whether it runs Chrome OS or not), and I will also be using it for obvious smartphone stuff. But for the most part, I do not use a smartphone that often when I am at home. For years I was “mobile-only” and only used either a smartphone or smartphone + tablet combo, but now I have this laptop and I am able to do a lot more with this laptop, so it stays!

This phone will be treated a little bit different, though. With the Moto G6 Forge I treated it like shit. I downloaded apps that were not from the Google Play Store, I went through Fuck Knows how many app launchers, etc etc. This phone I will be keeping more or less “stock” as the default Pixel Launcher is supposed to be very good. I will not, however, be using Personal Assistant (which sounds like blasphemy for a Pixel owner) because I am 100% against personal assistants, home assistants, Alexa, and all of that. This phone will be a bare bones, basic, utility phone (except for the Twitter app) which is exactly what the iPhone 6 is for me right now.

I mean it is. We all die eventually. But is extinction of the human race inevitable? Meaning, in our lifetime?

I was just looking outside at an old man as he was walking his dog and the demeanor of the dog was so different than that of the man. The man looked miserable. The dog, not so. I sometimes think that animals (all of them) are the only ones that have a true bearing on reality.

Why do I say this?

Well, I was listening to NPR a while back, and there was a neuro-scientist (sp?) on there and she was saying that the reason human beings were able to stop being nomadic and evolve into what we are now, with societies, governments, money systems, etc. is because we figured out how to do two things:

cook/preserve food (so hunting was a lot less frequent)

harness water for irrigation

Therefore, the nomadism could stop. We could “settle”. We could use our (now abundant) time and energy to think and create. But what was most interesting about the NPR interview wasn't just this obvious change, but the fact that two “chromosomes” (or micro chromosomes or something to that effect) formed around the brain stem of human beings. We used to have three(3), like all other creatures of the world. But now we have five(5).

How? We were consuming many more calories that would otherwise be burnt moving from place to place and foraging and hunting. The non-obvious change from these chromosome formations was the ability to gauge time much better. We could study the skies better. Therefore FARM (not just garden) better. In simple terms: it expanded our ability to think, predict, plan, and learn.

But this takes me back to our perception of reality (which is just a perception, after all). A dog, a cat, a dolphin, would have a much better grasp on their reality as opposed to a human grasp on their own (in fact, many people lack a solid grip on reality, altogether). I say this because our “big, powerful brains” are stronger and more complex to the point of being impaired in many ways. We may have intelligence, books, institutions, etc. but the very thing that is necessary to support all of these things is directly threatened by the creation of them – planet Earth, itself.

So, are we living within our means in terms of our relationship with Mother Nature? Short answer: no. Will this change? Again, no. It would already be happening if this were the case. Are global warming/climate change catastrophes inevitable? Well, considering most scientists say that we are on an irreversible crash course with Mother Nature, then, yes.

Why point all this out? Just so people can “be more aware” I suppose. It is a self-hosted think piece because I have nothing else to write about at the moment.

I got absolutely jack shit to do tonight which more or less is a good thing. If I let it be.

I wanna go hiking. Not this exact second, but I wanna go hiking in the near future. My favorite thing to do in the world. I am going to go (at Cliff Cave Park) early next week.

So, the coffee, the music, what of it?

It is store brand coffee from Target because I couldn't get my fair trade, organic, favorite coffee from Boyd's Coffee this week. The music is Blondie. On my “Soul's Worn Thin” playlist. Kind of music that makes you feel better when you've used drugs too many times in your life and sort of feel “down”.

In fact, I am thinking bout downloading the Write.as editor for #Linux at some point (if/when I get Linux on this machine). But then again I like...no, MUST have my #writing on a dedicated, signed-in, actual blog (this one). Write.as for desktop (currently only Linux) does not allow you to sign in. An issue I took with the Android app, as well, but no big deal.

So, it is 11:09 PM, the sliding glass door is wide open and cars are fucking flying down the street with reckless abandon towards a very steep curve in the road, but luckily there have been to wrecks, so I am glad for that. People are foolish for driving that way, though.

It isn't the same people. “My” people. It is kind of like how I tried to leave Twitter for Facebook in 2013 (foolishly) but then came back to Twitter because the freaky-ness of Twitter was too much to resist. (Facebook has since been long-deleted and I am never going back because the family members on there are squares and I could always just talk to them in real life).

Mastodon is kind of...hellishly freaky. Like cartoon characters that scream random shit and, to be honest, just terrify me. I supplemented this by joining Mastodon.technology so I could talk to a bunch of old retro computing nerds (or something), and they never seem to use the service!

So, I am going to avoid Masto for a while. I get very little out of it. And being the true “minimalist” that I am, I will just stick to Tweeting and #blogging. Seems to be fairly simple.

The problem is that Twitter is a thing that exists. It isn't any thing about Twitter that would have to change for me to stop using it. Twitter, in and of itself, is an addiction network. Like gambling, or nicotine, or alcohol, or cocaine: it is designed to make you addicted. To call it a simple Website (or app) is not the correct term. Even Newgrounds.com (that I used to think was addictive) turned out not to be so when I finally gave it the boot. I never want to visit the site again (even though it exists). So, I can't squarely put the blame on “Twitter exists so break up Twitter so I can have my time back”. I would have to break my addiction to it and then move along with my life. Not sure how to do this, yet.

Phones are a problem. Smart phones, I should say, are a problem. People spend too much time on them. Get into trouble on them. They track your location constantly. Blah blah blah.

This is why I am seriously considering getting a feature phone (dumb phone). If I had WiFi or an LTE hotspot device in my apartment right now, it would be a no-brainer. But I do not have an LTE hotspot device
in my apartment. Yet.

I just put an AT&T Nighthawk LTE router into my cart at Best Buy (even though I hate Best Buy) and I think I am going to go ahead and order it, and then I will have reliable Internet service at my house 24/7 and I can put #Linux on my Chromebook, and not have to deal with the likes of Android OR (over-priced) iOS.

Perfect solution.

I just know about myself that I do not ever take my smartphone out of my pocket when I am in public even if I am getting a call or receiving a text. It eliminates the point of even carrying a phone with me. So some may say “get a home phone!”, but I am not dealing with Charter Home or any of that over, Over, OVER-priced caveman shit. I can have a feature phone WITH me at all times for like $25 (Talk + Text) and it will be there in case of an emergency. Simple.

And with any luck, the LTE router will provide faster Internet speeds when I DO connect a device, and not be the pathetic speeds I sort of have now (which are still considered LTE, just not FAST LTE).

So this is a very real possibility. In fact, it is something I am going to do.

Removed bookmarks bar from Google Chrome. However, I cannot get regular Firefox working on this Chromebook via Linux Beta command line NOR the Google Play Store. Chromebooks are the future of computing, right? Haha. I also reset the default search engine to DuckDuckGo (which I have been using everywhere else for a very long time now. Great results). And I cleared my cache. I figure this is a good time to do these things as I just went off of cloud storage late last night/early this AM, and it was about time for a little bit of Spring cleaning.

Also, I am getting the Pixel 3a (even though I ranted against Android before) because it is a cost cutting measure (because I'm always broke) over the iPhone 7 which would be significantly more expensive. Pretty excited about the 3a (Purplish, with Fog knit case). Gonna keep things on there to the bare minimum, uninstall everything that I do not need, keep the default launcher and NOT install anything that is not from the Google Play Store (because that is what killed my Moto G6 Forge). Gotta be careful.